


Ease Your Restless Mind

by bzarcher



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Cuddling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Gabe Can't Sleep, Insomnia, Inspired by Art, M/M, Podfic Welcome, Post-Recall, Pre-Fall, Reaper76 - Freeform, SEP
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-29
Updated: 2016-11-29
Packaged: 2018-09-03 02:52:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8693560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bzarcher/pseuds/bzarcher
Summary: Gabriel Reyes had always been a light sleeper, and the SEP "treatments" made it almost impossible for him to rest. Jack Morrison thinks he might be able to help with that.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by http://hinoart.tumblr.com/post/153809590707/hc-where-gabe-has-insomnia-and-cuddling-with-jack with the artist’s permission to create a fic based on their art. :)

It started with the SEP.

When they’d arrived at the program, each candidate had been told that Rank Did Not Matter Here. You went through “the treatments”, you performed in evaluations, and you would eventually graduate – or wash out.

For Gabriel Reyes, it meant that after almost six years of private quarters in officer country, he was back in boot again, sharing a room with a ridiculously stereotypical farm boy: Jack Morrison, all golden hair and electric blue eyes, looking every inch the corn fed hayseed that he was.

Gabriel tried to pretend he wasn’t interested. The guy was just a roommate, not too bad to talk to, nothing more. Besides, he had to be, what, two years younger than him? Despite all the talks they’d been given, there were still regs about fraternization, and the last thing Gabe wanted was to give up the chance of a lifetime because he couldn’t keep it in his pants.

Things changed after the second month of the program, as the doctors hung bags of ‘Classified’ and ‘You Don’t Need to Know What’s in It’ on their IVs. As they started workouts to optimize their new muscles, and train to get the most out of their newly enhanced senses.

When Gabriel stopped being able to sleep.

Growing up in East LA had made him a light sleeper for as long as Gabe could remember, and now he could hear _everything_. He could wear noise filtering protection in combat exercises, but he quickly found that trying to wear the earbuds to sleep was pointless. Every time he shifted around in bed they’d pop out, and before long he’d be wide awake again.

He was on his third night in a row of staring at the ceiling when Morrison took matters into his own hands.

“Reyes.”

“What, Morrison?”

“If you stare any harder at the ceiling, it’s going to come down on your head.”

Gabe couldn’t help the sharp snort of laughter that image evoked from him. “There’s an idea.” Maybe if he knocked himself out he’d manage a solid six hours. Was that worth risking a concussion, though?

Besides, they’d probably take the ceiling repairs out of his salary.

Morrison shifted, making enough room in his bed that Gabriel could (just) fit on the narrow bunk if he didn’t mind snuggling close. “Try coming over here.”

“Oh, you have got to be kidding me.” Gabe tried to put as much sarcasm in the words as he could, trying to hide the sudden clench of nerves around his guts. Was Morrison really offering what it looked like?

“Dead serious, Reyes. C’mon. If you can’t sleep on your own, maybe having someone around can help. Shared body heat and all that crap.” The farmboy paused, and his voice was softer when he went on. “Used to need it, too, when I was a kid. Especially if I was away from home.”

Gabriel rolled his eyes, but stood up and crossed to the other bunk, shifting his weight around until he found a comfortable position against the other man’s well-muscled body. “I can just see it. You must have been the snuggliest Boy Scout in your whole troop.”

“Well,” Jack admitted as he put an arm between his head and his pillow, “my first boyfriend didn’t have any complaints. The Scoutmasters at camp were a different story.”

“Seriously?” Gabe’s eyebrows rose, and so did something else. _Dammit dammit dammit not NOW_.

“Uh-huh.” Morrison couldn’t have missed the fact that his new bunkmate was suddenly at half mast, but apparently he was going to let it go tonight. “Got kicked out of Scouts for it, actually. But it could have been worse - David got kicked out with me. Hell of a way to come out to our parents, though.”

Gabriel laughed. “God, I can only imagine.” He had to admit Morrison _was_ pretty warm, and something about the rise and fall of his chest, along with the steady beat of his heart combined to finally relax him.

Jack smiled as Reyes finally slipped into sleep, his breathing becoming slow and regular, and tapped off his bedside lamp. “G’night, Gabe.”

The next morning, Gabriel had to admit it was probably the best night of sleep he’d had in a month.

* * *

After a week of Gabriel falling out of the twin sized bunk every time he woke up and tried to stretch, they pushed their bunks around to create a larger bed, lashing the legs of their bedframes together with extra paracord they’d swiped from the equipment room.

When Jack impulsively kissed him good morning, a few weeks later, Gabriel kissed back. Only the alarm on Jack’s phone kept them from missing the morning muster.

They kept their relationship quiet and made sure it never impacted anything in the field – they were so close to ‘graduation’ that it would be stupid to wash out now – but Gabriel did call in a few favors to make sure that wherever they would be posting him next, Jack Morrison would be coming along.

Three weeks later Lt. Colonel Gabriel Reyes and Captain Jack Morrison, US Army were meeting their new teammates at what would eventually be dubbed “Overwatch HQ”, and the rest was history.

They both should have admitted that something was seriously wrong when they stopped sleeping in the same room.

 _He's too busy with Blackwatch_ , Jack had justified to himself.

 _Jack was spending so much time kissing ass at the Security Council that he wouldn’t have been in bed anyway_ , Gabriel had convinced himself.

Gabriel was lucky if he got three hours of sleep a night – none of it consecutive. He lived off coffee and the seemingly endless well of rage that he’d found within himself from the day he was taken out of Overwatch and dropped into the shadows, while the failed Boy Scout got to be golden and blue eyed and perfect for the cameras.

When everything came apart, and his vision swam with blackness, crushed under the rubble of what had been their home, he’d welcomed the idea that he would finally rest.

Then came a flare of golden light, a thick choking _wrongness_ inside of him, and Reaper was born with a desperate scream of hatred and pain.

He kept telling himself that the Reaper didn’t need sleep. That the Reaper _couldn’t_ sleep.

Sometimes Reaper even believed himself.

* * *

Reaper wasn’t exactly sure how Angela and the Monkey had captured him. How the special cell he’d been placed in kept him from slipping back into the shadows. What they thought they could possibly do for him that didn’t involve finding some way to _finally let him die_.

He spent a frustrating week pacing the walls of his damned cage before anyone other than Angela deigned to visit him, and as soon as Reaper realized who was at the cell door, he wished that they hadn’t.

The years hadn’t been kind to either of them, but Reaper had known ‘Soldier: 76’’s true identity from the moment they first fought. No one else moved with that beautiful fluidity. No one else had a frame that so perfectly combined power and agility.

No one else had a heartbeat like that.

He tried to ignore his visitor, laying on the hard metal slab that served as his bunk. They’d taken his mask, his tactical gear, and his cloak while he’d been unconscious (closest he’d gotten to sleeping in months – maybe years), leaving him with the tight black compression top and shorts he’d worn beneath the body armor. After he’d woken up, Angela had left him an old Overwatch coverall “in case you wanted some clean clothes.” Reaper had wadded it up and used it as a makeshift pillow, because he’d be damned if he wore anything with that insignia on it ever again.

After what must have been half an hour of determinedly staring at the ceiling, Jack finally spoke. “Trying to bring the ceiling down on yourself again?”

“Funny,” Reaper snarled, “very funny, Jack.”

Jack gave a soft grunt, and there was a snapping sound as he removed the visor and mask. When he spoke again, the slightly distorted edge the mask added to his voice was gone. “Angela says you can’t sleep.”

Reaper growled at the back of his throat. God dammit, Ziegler. Couldn’t leave _anything_ alone, could she? “Dead things _don’t_ sleep, Morrison.”

“You look pretty alive to me.” How the _fuck_ did he sound so calm? “Which means you need REM sleep just as bad as anyone else. You can’t just pace around until you pass out, Gabe.”

 _ **"Reaper.**_ ”

“I know who I’m talking to.” There was a tap of a fingertip against a keypad, and the door of the cell opened just long enough to allow Morrison to slip through. “Why don’t I try coming over there, this time?”

Reaper felt his whole body tense up. “ _Don’t._ ”

Morrison shook his head, then shrugged out of that stupid jacket. “I think I need to.”

He still couldn’t wraith, but Reaper could at least back himself against the cell’s wall, keeping his body as far from the other man as he could. “Don’t come any closer, Morrison. I swear to God I will _find_ a way to hurt you."

Jack’s eyes swept over him, and the sadness – the regret – in those blue eyes made Reaper’s breath catch in his throat. “I stopped being there for you once, Gabe. I let it tear us apart. I walked away from you, and it was the worst mistake of my life. I’m not making it twice.”

Reaper couldn’t help himself from shaking. “I’m not what you think I am, Jack. I’m not him. I’m not Gabriel.”

Jack had stepped out of his boots, stripping himself down to a dark grey tank top and boxers before sitting on the edge of the bunk. “I know exactly who you are.”

Reaper couldn’t look him in the eye, his voice barely above a whispering rasp. “Who am I, then?”

Jack stretched out against the bunk, grunting a bit as he tried to get comfortable on the unforgiving surface. “You’re a man who desperately needs a good night’s sleep.”

Reaper surrendered to the strong hands that had wrapped around his shoulders, drawing him down against the (slightly) younger man’s chest. Jack’s fingers gently stroked his back as Reaper listened to the heartbeat that was etched into his memories, accompanied by the sounds of breathing that he’d known better than his own. 

Reaper closed his eyes, and as Jack Morrison tenderly kissed his forehead, Gabriel Reyes finally went to sleep.


End file.
